Brian's two favorite players in the NBA had good games tonight. Aldridge, a new career-high 42 against the Bulls, on 23 shots, with 8 rebounds, and Cousins, 25 and 14 on 16 shots, in just 30 minutes - but he did foul out and had 4 turnovers. Still, you can't really fault the 25 and 14 too much. Oh, and Carmelo had 50, only took 24 shots, and managed to look totally disengaged and bored throughout.

He mostly commits loose ball fouls and stupid reach-ins. Also charges, which aren't good as they turn the ball over. But yeah, I think his foul count overstates the degree to which he sends people to the line. Anyway, I think he averaged 17 and 8 in January, and he's already one of the top 30 players in the league in free throw attempts per minute, leading all rookies (then again, Lou's way up there), so... I'm feeling a little better about my Cousins support.

As for how they picked up those fouls, to the extent anyone was actually getting them in trouble, it was Millsap. He picked up a bunch, got to the line 8 times. Other than that, there were 3 charges and an assortment of fouls on random players.

Yeah, well the only other player to show up on offense for Denver was Ty, with 19, 6 and 5. And today he played the starter - Billups went down early with a strain of some sort. I was watching the game and Kevin Martin was very impressive. He's absurdly good at drawing contact to the point where it's fun to watch him flop, has really, if you'll excuse the term, nifty footwork (though it got so nifty that he got called for traveling 2 or 3 times), and somehow managed to score 37 even though most of his teammates don't seem very inclined to give him the ball. For long stretches of the game he was just forgotten by Lowry and co. out at the three-point line.

I was wrong, Amare secured 3 D-Boards. It amazes me how some of these guys never grab d-boards. B. Lopez only averages 3.4 d-boards a game. That is crazy. Can't they get a few more than that by simple grabbing missed FTs?

I was between 6 and 7 and went with the more optimistic version. This stretch heading into the allstar break is really difficult but they can more than make up for it with the first games after the allstar break.

Looking at the few teams that are never very good (Clippers, Wolves, Bobcats etc), is there a reason why they manage to stay bad-mediocre so long? Bad picks, bad luck, give up on players, over-pay players, turn-over coaches, cheap owners...

Is it as simple as they have yet to get a meaningful #1 overall pick (luck) and in that case will the Clippers now be good?

As a counter- Cleveland has been textbook horrible 5 years before and now after Lebron. Are they a bad franchise that lucked into Lebron, while those other bad franchises simplty lack luck? Or does it go deeper?

There really are very few teams that stay bad for more than 5 years. I worry the Sixers actively prolong mediocrity through a broken mindset, and want to see not only how good teams were built, but why some teams never become good.

With the clippers, I think it's institutional, if you read some of the things elgin baylor has said about the organization...based on other things (being a slum lord), I believe that Sterling is a racist and probably that motivates some of the moves he makes...have they drafted well? I'd have to go back and look.

Well, the Wolves current stretch comes down to Kahn, I believe. They got lucky in the Love/Mayo deal. Then they raped Washington in the following draft and completely blew it. First the took Rubio, which may have been a good pick, and then completely blew two picks by taking Flynn. Had they taken Curry with the other pick we may be looking at a starting five of Rubio, Curry, Beasley, Love and Darko. Which might be the worst defensive team ever, but they'd definitely be able to score. Kahn has made a series of head-scratching moves. To be fair, though, they've only really been horrible since Garnett left, and I think they fell into the same trap as Cleveland, constantly trying to appease their star so he wouldn't leave, then when he did leave, they were left with a bunch of terrible parts that really only allegedly complemented that particular star.

The Clippers have suffered from every reason you stated above, and while it's easy to put all the blame on a cheap owner, it's had more to do with bad drafting and/or bad luck. When you have as many high lottery picks as they've had, it's unbelievable they've remained bad for so long. This Griffin thing is going to be interesting. DeAndre Jordan is the first domino, if they don't re-sign him (possibly because they can't move Kaman, and they already have one "all star" center), then you could be looking at a slippery slope to being in the same boat as CLE with LeBron and MIN with Garnett. The only problem is that Garnett and LeBron were excellent on both ends of the floor, which made it easier to cobble together a roster that could win a ton of games around them. Griffin isn't a good defender, so you may very well see him continue to put up monster numbers on sub-.500 teams for a long time. The possible difference with the Clippers is that you've got Gordon there as well, and he's better than any #2 LeBron and Garnett had. It'll probably come down to whether Sterling is willing to extend Gordon and Griffin for max money, and whether he's willing to keep the complimentary pieces around on decent contracts while he's doing it. My gut says no. Griffin is also much more of an injury risk than LBJ and KG ever were, and if the thing that makes him so exciting is also the reason why it's really likely that he misses extended time and/or has a very short career.

Not sure if any of that answers your initial question. Oh yeah, the Bobcats also only had one really good draft pick, but it wasn't quite good enough. They wound up with Okafor when Orlando got Dwight Howard. I'm really hoping the Wall/Turner draft doesn't put us in the same boat.

The only thing that 'prevents' the Clippers signing Jordan is Sterling. If you can't trade kaman, he's a sunk cost, for one more season, and if you don't re-sign jordan you're screwed.

Depending on the new CBA, letting Jordan go is purely a financial decision by Sterling. If there's a hard cap things get trickier. (I don't know that there will be, I've been reconsidering where the compromise comes in, I think the cap number will be lower, but still soft, but less exceptions)

It's funny because there was an article yesterday talking about 'panic' in lakerland because they feel they might be in trouble roster wise and the clippers with griffin are now ascendant in terms of popularity (how long will griffin stay popular if they aren't winning games next year?)

I think it's a combination of all the things that were mentioned but the things that stand out most to me are bad decision making from the front office and more importantly failing to understand the meaning of having a winning atmosphere and a winning system.

A lot of those "mediocre-for-eternity" teams have drafted a ton of solid players over the years but most of them got traded or left them for other teams where they blossomed (e.g. Odom). Going fully young while hoping for that young core to grow together has proven to be the wrong rebuilding way a number of times.

There is another bigger problem however IMO. The key problem is not becoming a contender, it's being better than the 6-7 contenders in a given year. There are a ton of solid teams with a lot of regular season wins that never won a championship. There are even some that haven't even had any playoff success. Teams like Dallas and Phoenix never won a championship. Teams like Utah, Denver, Portland, Houston, Atlanta have been very good for a while but never did anything in the playoffs.

This was in a spanish website (the euro websites are notorious for making things up and then claiming things were lost in translation)

Andres Nocioni has decided to end his NBA career after seven frustrating seasons where he didn't play on any winning team. So he has decided to return to Europe. And what better place to go than Vitoria, where he left great memories and will be welcomed with open arms. That's what this website can tell right now, after confirming the interest from both parts to meet again. The great Argentinean forward wouldn't mind returning to Baskonia and the club has quietly negotiated with him during the last weeks

If he retires, then yeah. He's completely off the books. I'm not sure if he can retire and then go play in Europe, though. Not quite sure how that works. If he retires, I'll personally buy his plane ticket to Spain.

Mahinmi had 11 and 8 in 20 minutes last night (though he fouled and turned the ball over at a high rate). I wonder how much the Dallas brass values him....if he could be had, I'd go for it. Doubt they'd give him up without asking for a lot in return, and unloading an undesirable contract of their own.

The sight of Haywood's 6 years is enough to turn my stomach, but if the goal is to go forward with Jrue, A.I., Brand and Turner for the next few years, why not get a solid veteran center who is about Brand's age, relatively healthy and can still contribute. I'm no Hawyood fan but he's not a terrible player and he's gotta be miserable in Dallas. Split his minutes with Mahinmi and bring him along, see if he can sustain his effectiveness with a greater role. The guy's WS/48 stats over his first three years (granted, in very limited minutes) are .372, .206 and .254. When he's played more minutes this season, his production kept right on that pace. And who knows, with the new CBA going into effect we might be able to jettison a few years of Hawyood's contract, or if he holds up, flip him to someone who needs a quick hole to fill 3 years or so down the line.

Dallas gets a backup center in Speights and a raw 'Dirk light' type stretch 4. Their back-up PG comes off the books after this year, and Lou Williams is a big improvement over J.J. Barea. Someone's gonna have to spell old man time next year, and Williams' contract is reasonable.

This would probably have to be an off-season trade because I don't think either team wants to shake it up this year. Thoughts? Am I absolutely crazy?

Yeah, this was all under the assumption that they re-sign Chandler. He's playing really well and they'd be fools not to re-sign him, but having two highly paid centers isn't a good prospect for Dallas. Too bad the Sixers aren't really in the position to swing for Chandler, a Chandler/Brand frontcourt could be lethal with this group of players.

Again, I'm not bowled over by Haywood's talents or anything, but is he really that lousy of a player? It's a step up over what we have now. Look at the other centers who are even remotely available. Pryzbilla, Kaman (who is worse than Haywood, let's not kid ourselves), Camby (who won't come here), Varejao (on an equally bloated contract), Biedrins (whose contract is 4 years, but 9 mil per vs. Haywood's 6-7 mil). Thabeet?

These guys are all either old, injured, can't play a lick of defense or can't play at all. Haywood at least has some defensive presence and isn't an inefficient drag on his team like Kaman. I'm just looking at ways to improve at C and the options are so scarce, I'd be willing at this point to pay a vet and take a chance on a young upstart C prospect who's never gotten the opportunity to play bigger minutes. It's a sad state of affairs, I admit :)

It's horrible for the lakers as well- they need a healthy bynum to take out the Celtics in 7 - if perkins plays in game 7 - do the lakers win last year even - with bynum?

The Lakers do need help - but hurting their 'big man dominance' ain't the way to do it - they have few tradeable parts of any value that they'd be willing to give up (artest, blake, walton, and second round players of no use and really low first round draft picks)

I hope someone else saw Dwight Howard's post game interview tonight - he essentially guaranteed they would beat us tomorrow when the reporter brought up how well the Sixers have played against them. It was a big time insult. Doug Collins needs to show the footage to the boys.